Passage Looking for the Smallest Spark of Everything
Looking for the Smallest Spark of Everything
Located underground near Geneva, Switzerland, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) helps scientists study and understand how the smallest particles of matter interact with one another. The LHC propels atomic particle beams along a 17-mile-long ring.
There are the things the world is made of,
things we can see and feel, and then
there are the things even smaller, things that seem
to exist only when we are looking right at them.
So beneath the level of molecules are atoms,
and beneath the level of atoms, we find
protons, electrons, neutrons; and beneath that—
what, exactly? Because we are talking about
everything here: your fingernail,
the candy at the back of your mouth,
the coffee your teacher drank this morning,
your little sister, and the stuffed dog
she used to carry around with her everywhere.
And everywhere.
Everything and everywhere
are made up of the same stuff, whatever
it is. How do we find it? We can listen for it
in the wavelengths from deep space,
talking back to us from unimaginable
distances. Or we can build long,
deep circular tunnels beneath the surface
of this Earth and race particles
(like racing cars, only very tiny cars
flashing along at close to the speed of light)
until everything we think we know
bangs against everything else we know.
And there, in the explosion, in the darkness,
briefly incandescent, they appear:
the quarks, the leptons, and the bosons;
the baryons and the mesons. Their names
sound like dinosaurs or maybe bands
playing terrible music in someone’s garage.
The one thing we know for sure
is that they spin. This is how gravity
enters our world, how our world is held
both together and apart, what keeps
together the pencil in your hand right now
as well as separate from, say,
Jupiter. They spin, and it is only down there
in the darkness—in the vast garage
where physicists jot down
what they can, whatever seems most real—
that they let us perceive their wild dancing,
combusting to the music they make.
Question
Read lines 5–8 from the poem.
So beneath the level of molecules are atoms,
and beneath the level of atoms, we find
protons, electrons, neutrons; and beneath that—
what, exactly?
The lines help develop a central idea of the poem by revealing the speaker’s
- Ainterest in determining how the parts of matter work together.
- Bcuriosity about what makes up matter.
- Cdesire to prove that particles make up matter.
- Dquestions about what tools are needed to study matter.
Show the answer
Correct answer: B
The question asks what lines 5–8 reveal about the speaker to help develop a central idea of the poem.
A. Incorrect. In lines 5–8, the speaker is demonstrating knowledge about the structure of matter, not demonstrating interest in how matter’s parts work together; for example, “beneath the level of molecules are atoms, / and beneath the level of atoms, we find / protons, electrons, neutrons” (lines 5–7).
B. CORRECT. Lines 5–8 show the connection between the particles by using the words “beneath the level” repeatedly. The progression of particles of matter, from atoms to subatomic particles, “protons, electrons, neutrons” (line 7), ends with a question. By asking, “what, exactly?” (line 8), the speaker questions the mysteries that are still unsolved about the nature of matter, which is a central idea of the poem.
C. Incorrect. The speaker expresses curiosity in line 8 (“what, exactly?”) but does not use language in lines 5–8 that expresses a desire to prove a point. The poem does not show any conflict, either from within or from other scientists, about the concept that particles make up matter.
D. Incorrect. While the poem is about the Large Hadron Collider, which, according to the introductory text before the poem, is a tool that “helps scientists study and understand how the smallest particles of matter interact with one another,” lines 5–8 do not suggest the use of tools but rather question what comes after the “protons, electrons, neutrons” (line 7).
Question analysis
This question on the poem “Looking for the Smallest Spark of Everything,” about the Large Hadron Collider, quotes lines 5–8, which move from molecules down to atoms and smaller particles. Students decide what the lines reveal about the speaker and how that develops a central idea of the poem. The choices name related attitudes toward matter and science, so precise reading matters.
- Grade level
- Grade 6 reading and task
- Compared with grade 7
- Below grade 7 Below typical grade 7 demand: the four lines are quoted in the question and use everyday words, so a single step of interpretation links them to the speaker’s attitude and to the poem’s larger subject.
- Estimated difficulty
- Straightforward: two steps or one careful reading.
- Thinking it demands
- Depth of knowledge 2, skills and concepts · mainly analyze
- What makes it hard
- Evidence
- Answered from one paragraph or stanza
- Reading level
- Passage: 346 words (a poem; reading level not measured); question and choices: about grade 7, 76 words.
- Students, last 30 days
- Not enough answers yet to show (it takes 10).
Why it is hard, traps and wrong answers (shows the answer)
Why it is hard
The lines move down level by level, molecules, atoms, protons, and then stop at a question, so the speaker’s curiosity is close to the surface. The choice about how the parts work together comes nearest to the right one, helped by the head-note, which says the collider studies how particles “interact.” Students who notice that the lines list what lies beneath what, and never how things interact, settle on curiosity about what matter is made of.
Reading between the lines minor Working it out
The speaker never names a feeling; the curiosity shows in the dash and the question “what, exactly?” that cut off a confident list of layers. (Graesser, Singer & Trabasso, 1994; Kintsch, 1998)
A very close wrong answer minor Choosing the answer
The choice about how the parts of matter work together and the right one both give the speaker an interest in matter; they part on its object, how parts interact or what matter is made of. (Embretson & Wetzel, 1987; Gorin & Embretson, 2006; Ascalon et al., 2007)
Strategy: Read lines 5–8 as one sentence, describe in a word or two what the speaker is doing in them, and pick the choice that matches those exact lines.
Traps
- Twists what the text says: Uses the text's topic and ideas but changes what it says: who did it, how much, when, or why.
- Wrong part of the text: A choice is true of another paragraph, stanza or speaker than the one asked about.
- Reads too much in: A reasonable-sounding conclusion that goes further than the text allows.
The wrong answers, classified
A Twists what the text says (King et al., 2004)
Keeps the speaker’s interest in matter but shifts it from what lies beneath atoms to how parts interact, the subject the head-note gives the collider, not these lines.
C Reads too much in (Graesser, Singer & Trabasso, 1994)
Reads the confident list of layers as a case being argued, though the speaker treats them as known and ends on a question, seeking rather than proving.
D Wrong part of the text (Kirsch & Mosenthal, 1990)
Jumps ahead to stanza 3, where the speaker asks “How do we find it?” and describes tunnels, but lines 5–8 say nothing about tools or ways of studying matter.
Working it out, step by step
Figure out what the question asks
This asks what lines 5–8 show about the speaker, the voice talking in the poem. It also asks how that fits a central idea, a main point of the whole poem. Decide what the speaker is doing in these lines.
Read lines 5–8
The lines say “So beneath the level of molecules are atoms, / and beneath the level of atoms, we find / protons, electrons, neutrons; and beneath that— / what, exactly?” Matter is the stuff everything is made of. A molecule is a tiny group of atoms joined together. Protons, electrons and neutrons are the even tinier parts of an atom.
See what the speaker is doing
The speaker goes down layer by layer: molecules, then atoms, then the parts of atoms. Then the list stops with a dash and a question: “what, exactly?” The speaker does not know what lies beneath, and wants to know. That is curiosity. The whole poem keeps asking what everything is made of.
Check each choice
- A does not fit. The lines ask what is underneath, not how the parts work together.
- B fits. The speaker wonders what matter is made of at its smallest.
- C does not fit. The speaker is not trying to prove a point. The lines end with a question.
- D does not fit. Ways to search, like tunnels, come later, in lines 17–22. Lines 5–8 do not mention them.
Watch out: A is tempting because the note before the poem says scientists study how particles “interact,” or act on one another. But lines 5–8 are only about what lies beneath.
Choose the answer
The question “what, exactly?” shows a speaker who wants to know what matter is made of. So the answer is B, “curiosity about what makes up matter.”
Why this answer and not the closest wrong one
A is the closest wrong choice, since it also shows interest in matter. But A is about how the parts work together. Lines 5–8 never talk about that. They go down layer by layer and end with “what, exactly?” That question asks what matter is made of, so B fits.
More questions like this
The original DOE question
The passage “Looking for the Smallest Spark of Everything” as printed (pages 32–33)
